Tag Archives: Office 365

Microsoft announced a renaming of the Office 365 bundles to Microsoft 365. This will go into effect April 21. Yeah, I know. Just when we were getting used to the different products!

The features, pricing, and programmatic details do not change, just the name. That being said, it is important to realize this change so you can inform your end customers. Since the Product name changed, so will your invoice from Microsoft or your CSP Provider.

Office 365 Pro Plus is now Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise

Office 365 Business is now Microsoft 365 Apps for Business

Office 365 Business Essentials is not Microsoft 365 Business Basic

Office 365 Business Premium is now called Microsoft 365 Business Standard

Microsoft 365 Business is not Microsoft 365 Business Premium

No new changes with SPLA as it relates to Office. Still per user per month.

I wouldn’t think so and wouldn’t know how they could incorporate the two. Azure is Microsoft hosted and SPLA is partnered. Microsoft will want to keep SPLA and Azure separate.

Is Azure Stack part of SPLA?

Azure Stack by itself is not part of SPLA. What’s part of SPLA is the Windows licenses. As a service provider, you could deploy Azure Stack, pay the base consumption rate, and use Windows licensing with SPLA. In fact, I think it’s less expensive to do it this way.

If my customer wants to use their own Windows license on Azure Stack, do they also require CAL’s?

Yes. You need to pay attention to the Product Terms to ensure compliance. As an example, volume licensing prohibits hosting. You cannot install your own Windows licenses through volume licensing and host using Azure Stack.

Does Office 365 qualify for the SAL for SA product in SPLA?

The only Office 365 product that is eligible for SAL for SA is Skype.

Is SPLA pricing going up?

Yes and will not be decreasing anytime soon.

Since AWS offers dedicated hardware, could I transfer my customer’s license to their datacenter without Software Assurance?

Yes. If its dedicated hardware Software Assurance is not required.

What about Azure?

No, you would need Software Assurance.

Will Microsoft finally allow MSDN to be licensed in my datacenter?

Probably not. Although if you use Azure, MSDN is eligible to be transferred.

If I sell CSP through 2-Tier distributor, can I sign the QMTH addendum?

No. You must be CSP 1 – Tier to qualify for QMTH.

Can I outsource support for certain software through CSP?

Yes. You an resell the solutions you can support and leverage another partner for support for other products.

If a customer has 4 x SQL Server Standard (8 cores), does that mean I will also need to have 4 x SQL-SAL?

There’s no server + CAL model in SPLA. You license either per core or per user depending on the product. Remember, SAL is not licensed per server, but for each user that has access to that server. Your question indicates you might believe a SAL is licensed per server which is not true.

2. Is MSDN available through SPLA? Is it through Azure?

MSDN is not available in SPLA, but you can license the individual components through SPLA. If an end-user would like to bring their MSDN license over to your datacenter, you must dedicate the solution for your customer. Yes, Amazon must play by the same rules. Oddly enough, Azure (which is shared) does allow MSDN to be transferred over to their datacenter.

3. I received an audit notification. Should I respond?

Yes. But don’t work on their time, work on yours.

4. If I signed the SCA addendum, do I need to sign the new QMTH addendum?

Unless you are planning on hosting Windows 10 you do not need to sign the new addendum.

Lot’s of questions about Dynamics 365 and SPLA. Here are a few frequently asked questions to help solve the mystery.

I’m having difficulty keeping track of all the changes at Microsoft. If I reported CRM prior to the new Dynamics 365 SKU’s in SPLA, can I continue to report the way I did prior to the change?

Yes. Service Providers who reported CRM before can continue to do so until your agreement expires. Once you renew, you can start reporting the transition SKU’s a lower cost through October 2019.

How does the new SKU’s correlate to the old SKU’s in CRM?

There’s no 1-1 ratio with older CRM products and the new Dynamics 365 products. Some of the features that are included with Dynamics 365 are not found in some of the older products. Let me provide an example, if a hoster offered CRM 2016 Pro, they would have to stack licenses to get all the functionality. To be specific, they would have to report EMT-00648 and ENJ-00826.

But what would happen if I was reporting Basic?

You would also be required to stack licenses to get all the functionality. Specifically, you would need EMT-00649 and ENJ-00827 to cover everything.

Why the change?

It’s a clever move to get end users to transition to CRM Online in my humble opinion.

Ok. But I didn’t have customers on CRM prior to the change. Can I still report old SKU’s.

According to Microsoft, you must report the new Dynamics 365 products.

I would like to use the new Social Engagement feature within CRM. How do I activate in SPLA?

Although the Social Engagement feature can be enabled for on premise CRM deployments, I “believe” they are assuming the customer already purchased an Dynamics Online subscription. In other words, in order to obtain Social Engagement, the customer would require an online subscription. Would love to know if this is different 🙂

What would happen if I sell myself Office Pro Plus through my own CSP authorization? Can I do that?

No. You cannot sell yourself Office 365 Pro Plus licenses. You can purchase it through any volume licensing program or through another CSP provider. Might be a good way to check out the competition support processes though!

If you are CSP authorized in Australia, but have customers in UK, can you resell Office 365 through CSP?

No. You can only resell in the region in which you are authorized.

If my end customer purchased Office 365 Pro Plus through Volume Licensing, can I host it from my datacenter if I am QMTH authorized?

Yes. The end customer can purchase from any licensing program as long as it is Office 365 Pro Plus version. As the service provider, you must be QMTH authorized.

If I purchase CSP licenses indirectly from my distributor, do I qualify for QMTH?

No. You must CSP Direct authorized in order to that. You cannot purchase from a distributor and offer VDI or Office Pro Plus.

If I sell Azure through CSP, how do I know which region my data is located?

With Azure, you get to pick the region.

If I sell Office 365 through CSP, which region is my service hosted from?

The address on the invoice determines the location of the services.

***Watch out for the new Microsoft Cloud Agreement (MCA) coming in September. You can download the old version here

What happens if you have end customers who want to use Office Online for external users (non-employees of your organization). Is that SPLA? In this article, we will break down Office Online through three programs – SPLA, Volume Licensing, and CSP.

SPLA

If you are hosting Office for another organization SPLA definitely fits. As an example, if you provide DaaS to your customers who are also licensed for Office, they can access Office Online. In this model, you license SharePoint (requirement for Office Online) Office by user, RDS per user, and Windows + SQL Server. Very expensive to simply offer a customer the ability to view and edit documents online.

Volume Licensing and Office 365

Office Online was added as a Software Assurance benefit for Office in 2016. End customer’s who simply want to view documents can download it directly from the Volume Licensing Services Center (VLSC). End customers that require document creation, edit/save functionality will be required to have an on-premises Office license with Software Assurance or an Office 365 ProPlus subscription. Any customer that purchased an Office 2016 suite through Volume Licensing before August 1, 2016 will not require SA through August 1, 2019. After August 1, 2019 they must buy SA for any on-premise Office licenses.

According to the Product Terms (May 2016) “If Customer has a License for Office 365 Pro Plus, then Customer may use Office Online services. Each of Customer’s Licensed Users of Office 365 Pro Plus may access Office Online services for viewing and editing documents, as long as they are also licensed for SharePoint Online or OneDrive for Business.” It’s the last sentence that stings. In other words, you want Office Online? Better buy Office 365 E3.

Office Online for CSP

The same rules apply. In this scenario, the hosting company could sell Office 365 E3 through CSP program to their end users. In CSP, the end customer is paying month – month and paying for support.

There’s been a lot of talk as of late about the new QMTH addendum. I’ve written a couple of articles on the topic here In this article, we will summarize what is written in the addendum so there’s no surprises. I listed some (not all) of terms and conditions to ensure you are up to speed on the latest developments.

CSP Membership – You (or affiliates) must be a Direct CSP partner. This means you cannot leverage an Indirect CSP partner for this program. In other words, if you receive CSP licensing from Ingram Micro or SherWeb (as an example) your partnership with those distributors/partner does not qualify for QMTH. Your organization must be CSP Direct authorized, not your partner.

Must meet the system requirements – System Requirements can be found here

Have an active SPLA agreement.

Reporting Requirements – You will always need to report underlying licenses in SPLA. Those underlying licenses could be any software to deploy a VDI solution – (Windows Server and RDS). In addition, you must report (by the last calendar day of each month) the Windows 10/O365 licenses deployed. This is manual, meaning you will send an email to the QMTH alias for submission. Once automated reporting is available, you must enable Microsoft’s automated reporting tool. Microsoft will use the tool to collect your customer’s organization ID and tenant ID as well as the total number of users accessing the software.

As the provider, you must report to your SPLA Reseller the program administrative fee. If you are currently in the SCA program, you will be familiar with this SKU.

As the provider, you must make all education materials publicly available. You cannot just sign up for CSP, the education material should be like what’s on the QMH website.

For each per user subscription to Windows 10 Enterprise, the end-user can only access up to four (4) instances of Windows 10 either on Azure or you, the QMTH hoster. This is like the SCA program in which the end user has five (5) instances of Office Pro Plus, Windows 10 works the same way.

Listed above is a summary. I encourage you to reach out to your Microsoft rep for additional information. I am happy to review it further, it’s a new program with pluses and minuses. Be sure to understand the minuses first 🙂